Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

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Ho Chi Minh City is a metropolis on the move and we are not just talking about the city’s motorbikes (we never have seen so many)! It is also a city with nine millions inhabitants, you can imagine how crowded the places can get with that many people and motorbikes.

Our six day stay permitted us to see quite a lot. The Notre Dame cathedral, the Banh Thanh market, the French post office, which is a beautiful yellow building with its many old telephone cabines and beautiful historical map of Saigon painted on the wall. Moreover, we visited the Marriamman Hindu Temple, a colourful slice of southern india. Hinduism is, besides bouddhism, also considered sacred by many ethnic Vietnamese. We learned that Marriamman is the godess of the fertility and rain. Furthermore, we visited the War Remnants musuem that shows so well the brutality of war and the many civilian victims of the US military actions.

Ho Chi Mihn is located at only two hours from the world famous Mekong Delta floating markets, therefore we decided to go on a day trip to discover this extraordinary way of shopping on the water. Unfortunatly, as we arrived at 10am it wasn't very busy anymore, but we still saw a lot of boats selling theirs products on water, this felt really unique. That day, we also enjoyed a short trip on a traditional wooden boat with typical Vietnamese hats.

Thanks to Gricha, a friend of the family of Hélène, we had the chance to stay at his appartment and finally cook for ourselves, because guess what we are sick of eating noodles and rice! We didn't find a hostel so far in Asie with a kitchen, so this was again a huge treat for us.

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