This is the 2nd city I visited which I don't understand their language. It's challenging yet fun. I have lots of friends who asked will I recommend them to visit this place and I can't answer. It's not the mainstream place to travel like Korea/Japan/Australia/Taiwan where people will brag about how beautiful is the place, how nice is the food etc.
As like my usual travel style, booked an air ticket during AirAsia sales without thinking when I will be free. I bought the ticket to Ho Chi Minh City one year ago. Don't worry about your travel buddy, it's not too late to seek for travel buddy after you buy the ticket. You will eventually get one if you are lucky haha.
We also managed to get a deal on Groupon for our hotel and complimentary tour. It's quite a good deal, we paid around RM250 per pax for 3 nights hotel stay + airport pick-up service + 1 full day Mekong River tour + 1 half day Cu Chi Tunnel tour.
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| So here we go! |
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| My travel buddies! Excuse my morning bloated face haha |
We arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport at around 8 am (GMT+7). It's 1 hour behind Kuala Lumpur. Once arrived, we went straight to the hotel to drop our luggage. It surprised me that we were allowed to check in at such early time.
The first place we visited was the Reunification Palace. We used cab most of the time as we were not familiar with the place and since there were 4 of us, it's quite cost-friendly too.
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| First destination with my no longer puffy face LOL |
Next stop, we walked to Ben Thanh market for lunch. Too touristy and things are over-priced here. Before the trip, I did some research and found that prices in Vietnam is pretty cheap but I was overwhelmed by the price I see here. People here are pretty scary
(or friendly in a way). After some surveying, we found this stall which seems popular and
less expensive. Follow the crowd and you will never go wrong.
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| 45,000 or 50,000 VND (approx RM8) for 1 bowl of noodle. Not cheap at all. |
After eating, we continued walking and walking and walking and we arrived at the museum.
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| View from the 2nd floor of the museum. |
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| The Opera House |
Vietnam was once under French colonisation so it explains the design of the building here.
Day 1 was pretty much free and easy. We were just walking around with a map on our hand and searching for places of interest. In the evening, it started raining so we went it to the mall to have a tea break while for the rain to stop. Then we went to the famous backpackers street (
Phạm Ngũ Lão) to explore and to have our dinner there as well. There's plenty of street food, bar and restaurant along the street. Beer is really cheap here, you can get it at 8,000-10,000 VND (less than RM2) in any supermarket.
The 1 thing which I enjoyed is the variety of fruit juice and smoothies there especially the one I had. Apparently, it's quite famous. It's located at back alley of the backpackers street.
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| The menu. You can choose to pick your own combination or choose from the already available combination. |
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| Ta-daa! The smoothie is really good. |
Day 2 Mekong Delta
So Mekong River is the river that runs through 6 countries (China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam). From the itinerary of the trip I know that we will be visiting the floating market so I was expecting something like this.
But this is what I saw.
Seriously?
And this. Seems like this is the only boat selling something (fruits).
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| On the boat |
Then we stop at this place to see the making of coconut candy, rice wine, pop rice and rice paper.
During the trip they also provided free lunch. After lunch, it was supposed to be a bicycle tour around the small village we were at. This is the
interesting part of the trip. There were not many bicycles to choose from and at last we actually decided not to ride the bicycle and walk instead but our tour guide insist us to ride the bicycle and put in effort to get us bicycle. The thing is the bicycle weren't in good condition. My poor friend ended up dropping into the small drain at the side of the lane because of the faulty bicycle :( Luckily my brothers managed to pull her up. I actually didn't realise that happening because I was riding infront of her. My phone dropped into the water too and the camera can't work anymore.
Later, the locals performed some Vietnamese song/drama/instruments which we didn't understand at all. It's actually quite entertaining though.
The trip continues..
We got on this small
sampan to the smaller part of the river. I was hesitating whether to get on it because it looks really unsafe.
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| We were on this small sampan. |
After that, we got onto the bus and went back to the city.
Food hunting continues because it's dinner time!
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| Finally a bowl of pho! |
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| Cuttlefish |
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| We found this stall in the residential area and decided to give it a try. |
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| I call this Vietnamese pizza (Bánh Tráng Nướng). It's really good! |
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| Not sure what is this but it tastes quite good too. |
To be continued.
