Blogs from Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia

Our flight from Da Nang to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) was quick and uneventful, and we soon arrived at our hotel for the next two nights, the Avanti, set on one of the main streets of Saigon, with the busy Ben Thanh market just across the road. On the front door of the hotel was a notice banning Durian in the building. Durian is the world’s smelliest fruit, and is very popular in South East Asia. I can concur that it is indeed a very unpleasantly smelling fruit, and having sampled a Durian sweet (candy) will not be doing so again! It’s also very obvious when one is nearby, and I seriously can’t understand the appeal. I read that it tastes like ice cream and is sweet, while others say it’s more like eating cheese. I ... read more

Our river cruise took us further down the Mekong Delta to Sa Dec, a typical village on the Mekong where we stopped at the local market. They work here 364 days of the year - one day off on a national holiday only! The market was labeled a fish market but there was everything that a Vietnamese family could want here! We saw them butchering chickens - dropping them in boiling water, plucking and chopping up with hatchets. Talk about fresh! The fish was even fresher as it swam in tanks, and basins ready to be killed and taken home. Lots of vegetables as well, many I had to ask about as I didn't recognize them. We stopped at a fading French colonial home that was the site of the true life romantic novel by Marguerite ... read more

We were due to be picked up at 7.00am for our big day trip today. I set an alarm for 5.15am so that we could be in the dining room at 6.00am when it opened for breakfast. As is always the case when one has an early alarm set, I was awake at 4.45am! After laying in bed for a few minutes debating with myself the pros and cons of trying to get another half an hour of sleep I decided to bite the bullet and head into the shower. We were in and out of the dining room by 6.30am which left time for us to clean our teeth and be back downstairs to meet our tour guide for the day at 7.00am. Nam was already there when we arrived in the foyer and took ... read more

I woke up about 4.30am local time (8.30am Melbourne), but managed to go back to sleep until 6.30am. Figured that wasn’t too bad for trying to get the body clock aligned with local time? Fortunately Bernie noticed this morning that Telstra had charged my phone with a $10.00 day pass. Oh no, we don’t want that to be happening at all. We have purchased e-sims so that we don’t need to be paying $$ for international roaming with Telstra. Grrr, tried to turn it off from my phone, but it would not allow us to do so and gave a free number to ring to have it sorted out. After a bit of mucking about and waiting for a call-back via the app I spoke with an operator who has turned roaming off. Hopefully that will ... read more

This virtual tour with Heygo took us to A Communist apartment complex. A vibrant local market & The second oldest cafe in Saigon. The apartment complex once inhabited by the Vietnamese military is now given back to local people who enjoy a great community. The highlight of the tour was in Saigon's District 3, the café at 287/72 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street used to be a weapons vault. It is decorated with memorabilia of soldiers in the Vietnam War, the country's war against American invaders which ended in 1975. The three levels building still has its original brick floor and tiled roof. The house’s specialty is a tunnel system that opened to visitors in 2018. In the 1960s, under the guise of repairing the house's bathroom drain, Lai asked his trusted workers to build this vault ... read more