Advertisement
Published: March 14th 2008
It was our last day in Saigon. So we decided to sleep in a bit late. Pressed snooze many times (as usual) This was supposed to be a holiday, not training camp for goodness' sake :P
Breakfast at Pham Ngu Lao alleys- why bother going so far? While we were searching for food, we came across a stall selling creme caramel owned by a supersweet supernice lady 😊 We ordered one each (total 4000D) and watched as she prepared them individually. It was no ordinary caramel pudding as she topped it with concentrated Vietnamese coffee. She also showed us how to eat it - she scooped up a spoonful of caramel+pudding+coffee+crushed ice goodness and fed it to us. One at a time 😊
After the sweet start to our morning, we went looking for real food. Eugene ordered un-tasty curry noodles, while I decided to have another round of baguette sandwich with cheese. The coffee lady also gave us a 1000D discount (Returning customer rate? hehe) While eating we were approached by a 12 year old girl in her school uniform who wanted to practise her English 😊 Eugene snapped quite a number of real cool pictures, life is
good in the alleys 😊
We then headed out to the city to explore the malls (and look for places with air conditioning-freaking hot!) We probably walked round Saigon Centre in less than half an hour. And then headed to Tax Dept Store (Formerly known as the Russian Market) and boy was the motorcycle parking lot massive! After cooling off, we headed to Ben Thanh market, planned to do some last minute shopping. Had lunch at Thanh Binh, which serves mostly Hue dishes. Didn't buy anything at Ben Thanh, and decided to head back to Saigon Centre to laze around before meeting up with Eugene's friend, Phuc after she finished work.
Phuc took us to a nice little Hue restaurant about 15 minutes from Pham Ngu Lao. Finally some real Vietnamese cuisine, as we wouldn't know what to order! After dinner, Phuc took us for dessert at another restaurant nearby. It had 2 storeys and was PACKED! Go where the locals go for the best stuff 😊 Chit chatting over 3 bowls/glasses of iced sweets/jelly, we had forgotten to keep track of time. Before we knew it, it was 9 PM, and we had a bus to catch
Breakfast - Pham Ngu Lao
Yummy cheesy baguette. 8000 Dongat 9.15! Pham Ngu Lao was 15 minutes away, and we hadn't return the bike/retrieved our bags from Nga. Brilliant 😉
And so, we braved the nite traffic of Saigon, and sped back to catch our bus. Phuc remarked that Eugene rode faster than the locals 😊 Yes indeed, our vietnamese motorbike hero 😊 Just as we were approaching our street, we saw OUR BUS turning out from it's parking lot, ready to speed of to Nha Trang! And so, our hero swerved in front of the moving bus, in order to stop it. I can still remember the look on the driver's face, and gesturing us to move away. We must have scared the shit out of him 😊 So they waited, bus driver grumpy and all, for us to get our stuff in order. Luckily, there were only 10 passengers in total (Including the both of us), and everyone was in good spirits. They must have had a shock earlier as well. We delayed the journey for about 15 minutes, but at least we made it! :P
What a way to end the day, a grand exit indeed 😊 Goodbye Saigon!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.071s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0458s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
