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Up bright and early this morning, for our bus to Ho Chi Minh City. As per usual (we should have know really as everything runs on asian time here... late!), it didn't arrive on time, only a mere 2 hours late and we were off. It was another sleeper bus, so basically we got to lounge around in beds all day whilst we were whisked miles away to the south. After battling through the rush hour traffic we made it to Pham Ngu Lao, one the the busiest places for travellers to stay in the city. We easily navigated the small alleyways or 'gangs' , getting to be such pros at this, and found our accomodation for the next few nights. We were given a 4 bed dorm room even though there was only 3 of us, and lets just say that the smell of said room was less than desirable, but we grinned and beared it and got on with it, nothing some air freshener couldnt fix😊 after some dinner and a walk around the area, a lively couple of streets full of restaurants, shops and bars, we were ready for bed, lying around all day really takes it out
of you!
first day in HCMC, and it begun with a noodle soup for breakfast, such a good way to start the day. We then began on our walk across the city, it was pretty hot, even at 11 in the morning, but it wasn't long until we reached the war remnants museum. It was soo interesting here, loads of exhibitions on the vietnm war, and as an ex-history student i found it all very informative, some of it was very shocking as i didn't really know much about the war at all, but left the museum feeling far more knowledgable on the subject. This afternoon was another stop on our cultural exploration of the city, whereby we went to visit the presedential palace, and even manaaged to tack onto the end of a tour, although the building itself was abit bland, the information kept us interested. On our way home we walked past notre dame cathedral, a rather lack lustre comparison to the original but was still quite impressive to see something as grand and impressive in a modern surrounding. Dinner tonight was very good - down this little alleywat, where all the tables were full and the
saigon green beers were flowing. there were about 2 staff to every customer though, maybe a good thing actually, as our food did come quickly😊
another day dawned, bright sunshine and bustling streets waiting us. had breakfast at this lush little bakery we found, all like french pastries and rolls, a very good breakfast was had by all😊 we then endeavoured to find the history museum but by the time we found it, it was closing for the lunch time break, which seems to be the norm here in vietnam. so instead we decided to take a walk around the zoo which was literally just next door, was quite a small zoo, but had animals i had never seen or heard before. not sure the vietnamese people really got the idea of the zoo as they were feeding the animals ice tea and giving them the bottles, but we still had a good time here😊 we then headed to the history museum which was full of ancient artifacts including loads of statues of buddha. v. interesting and set in a lovely old building too. After trekking across to try and find the jade pagoda we were left none the
wiser, and when we asked for directions people kept pointing us in different directions, so in the end we gave up and headed back to our hostel. Dinner tonight was lovely and the place was called kim's so was all the sweeter😊
today was our last full day in HCMC, we've really enjoyed our time here! we had another bakery delight for our breakfast before beginning on our mission to get across to china town. the owner of our hostel had told us to get a local bus as it was much, much cheaper than a taxi so we took him up on his advice, and luckily this nice old man told us we were at the right bus stop and how much we should pay, helpful😊 we hopped aboard the air conned bus and whizzed off through the lantern filled streets. when we arrived ta cholon/china town we were immediately truck by the traffic and just how many people there were about. The market itself was huge, 2 floors full with everything you could ever imagine from stationary, to childrens clothes and then right next door would be dried foods. was quite the experience! and as we walked
around this huge new years dragon popped out of nowhere being followed by drummers and began to bless the shop, or at least that what we thought it was doing! this afternoon we headed to hcmc museum, again full of interesting exhibits, this time more modern and explained some aspects of the war that i was unaware of. we were getting abit museumed out by this point so decided to go back to pham ngu where we spotted a sign advertising cheap beers, on a hotels rooftop bar, so we decided to indulge and spent the next few hours drinking saigon green and reminiscing over our time already spent travelling. Dinner tonight was lush, we went back down to ben than market and had bbq prawns and calamari, was so so tasty. as was kyles last night (well with us anyways😊) we had another beer and enjoyed people watching before heading back to pack before our early start in the morning. taiwan times ahead!
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