Ho Chi Minh City

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We could not have been more excited to arrive in Vietnam that night! Our flight arrived just before midnight and, although we had not booked a hotel room, we had read up on all the scams against tourists and felt like we handle ourselves…Turns out we overestimated our abilities a tad…

Walking outside the small, deserted airport, we were ambushed by taxi drivers of all kinds, some legit, some not so. We knew the hotel we wanted to go to and agree to go with a driver who looks like the real deal, knows the hotel we want and agrees to take us for 10$. We get in his car and drive for about 30 minutes until we get to this dark alley. He tries to tell us the hotel is somewhere down this alley and we should get out and go find it. Being smarter than that, I stay in the car with the bags and Mike ventures down the alley in search of Miss Loi’s Guesthouse. Not surprisingly, all he finds is some rats. We eventually get the driver to admit that he has no idea where the guesthouse is but wants us out of his car and to pay him his money! It’s raining at this point, we are tired and angry. He wants to take us to “a place he knows” which is code for ‘This is a scam. I will get part of the money for your overpriced room since I brought you here’. After a few more minutes of arguing, we break down and agree to see his hotel, adding that if we do not like it, he will take us back to the airport at no charge. we end up pay 15$ for a double room with bathroom reached via a skinny spiral staircase, so skinny that Mike’s pack barely fits up it!! For lack of a better option, we take the room, get some sleep and first thing the next morning, we walk to Miss Loi’s guesthouse (which turned out to be not too far away) and get a much nicer room, including breakfast, internet and hot water for 15$.

A new day, a new start, we LOVE Vietnam!! The streets were full of tiny pho (rice noodle soup with meat and seasonings) shops, thousands of people riding around crazily on motorbikes, vendors selling anything imaginable from their portable baskets and LOTS of honking horns! Our first taste of Vietnamese food was probably the tastiest meal we had in the whole country- but doesn’t it always seem that way?- you can never replicate that first delicious taste of a new food! We ate at this hole-in-the-wall shop where no one spoke English, but we had super tasty “pho bo” (beef pho) with a drink for less than 3$!

We spent our first day exploring on foot, learning the way to cross the busy, crazy streets (which is just walk zig zag across the road whenever you want and people will generally drive around you)!! We went to the War Remnants Museum filled with tons of photos of the American War (commonly known to us as the Vietnam war). The pictures were gruesome but told the true story of the war and it’s effects on the people of the country. We also visited the Reunification Palace, where the President used to live and do business.

As it is rainy season in Vietnam, we took shelter during the mid-afternoon rain then ended up at Ben Thanh market, an enormous and amazing maze-like market filled with food, clothes, household items, souvenirs and more! We spent hours walking around, bargaining and admiring the beautiful Vietnamese items on display. We wanted to buy so many things, but as it was our first day in the country we decided to hold off and see what the rest of our journey had to offer. A word to the wise in Vietnam: HCMC has the ONLY GREAT MARKET in the country! We were very disappointed when we arrived a couple weeks later in Hanoi to find out there was nothing comparable and all the items we’d been planning to buy were not there! We actually considered (and tried) and go back to HCMC later just to go to Ben Thanh market…but it turned out we would have needed another visa and it wasn’t worth it…both it was a close call!

At 6pm the market closes and most of the vendors take to the streets and the city erupts in a giant street party with roads closed for restaurants setting up on the pavement, market stalls lining the streets and thousands of people everywhere! What a great atmosphere!! We decided to dine at La Nicoise, a nice French restaurant where we were spoiled by delicious food and a generous owner who shared with us his own, home-brewed rum drinks: rum infused with passionfruit and vanilla (two different drinks, obviously!), both very delicious and verrrrryyyy strong!

The next morning we took a long walk to the Cholon district, or China Town. We knew as soon as we arrived in the area due to the smell of incense burning! We visited 5 Chinese temples in the area, all very old and almost run-down, but with intricate carvings and impressive statues. Since it took us 2 hours to walk to Cholon, we decided to try out the city buses for a ride back to the centre. The city bus costs 3,000dong (about 15 cents) so how can you go wrong!! Apparently tourists don’t ever take the bus though, because we got many stares as we boarded the bus full of locals!!

After another great lunch of pho, we walked around more, getting lost a few times, but finally arriving at the Jade Emperor temple. Just as we arrive, it starts pouring rain and we take cover inside the temple, listening to monks chanting. After 30 minutes of it, we were ready to go, but the rain was not finished so we pulled up our hoods, ducked our heads (just enough to clearly see the rat run by our feet as we leave!!!!) and run for the street. Luckily we weren’t running too quickly, because the road was completely flooded and we nearly fell flat on our faces when the sidewalk dipped off to road!

We manage to flag a taxi and get in only to find out he wants 5$ to take us about 1 minute drive – he clearly understands how to work with the weather! We refuse and get out of the taxi, leaving behind two very wet seats for him to deal with! haha! Since we were too cheap, we walked the distance back to the centre and stopped at a pub to dry off and wait out the storm.

Well, the storm ended up lasting most of the evening and we were soaked to the core! We bought some ponchos, booked a tour of the CuChi Tunnels for the following day and vowed that this was the last time the rain would get in our way- little did we know the huge flooding problem we would soon encounter!

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