Vietnam: Saigon Day 1

Anna G., Kat and I left Hong Kong on Monday night for Vietnam! We took a later flight (we flew United- it was a great little taste of America as an episode of The Office was shown and Lays potato chips were served) and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City around 10pm; we ordered our visas online and picked them up before going through customs and the baggage claim area. Unlike all other airports I’ve been through, our bags were required to go through another security/scanner check before leaving the airport. We were able to easily find our hostel driver/taxi guy and were on our way. Drivers here are on the left side (like in the States) and drive on the right side of the street- it was great to be back on the correct side.

Our hostel is located down an alley and surrounded by many other hostels. It’s a skinny building but very tall- we’re somewhere above the third or fourth floor- there are no exact floor levels here.

Tuesday morning we woke up ready to explore Ho Chi Minh City. We ate breakfast at the hostel and were going to be on our way when our room key broke so we were held up for about a half hour.

When we left we walked to Ben Thanh Market.  It was this huge inside market with thousands of stalls selling everything from towels to purses, fruit, coffee beans, and clothes. (Apparently Northface is extremely cheap here- we saw backpacks at the market for less than $20USD when they go for more than $100 in the States). We are planning to go back and do some shopping Friday morning.

{Sidenote: $1USD = ~20,000 Vietnam Dong; meals go for around 40,000 to 100,000+ Dong, a can of Diet Coke is usually around 10,000 Dong, bottles of water is between 7,000 and 10,000 depending on the size}

When we left the market we decided to do something like the tuk-tuk in Bangkok but is a tricycle and the ‘tourist’ sits in the front chair (see picture for better explanation). We were able to get up close and personal with HCMC traffic on our way to the Jade Emperor Buddha.

The Jade Emperor Buddha wasn’t too exciting or different from the Buddha’s I’ve seen, but it was still interesting. On the way in to the temple, numerous beggars came up to us and we passed various vendors, including one who was selling goldfish in bags!

We were then on to Notre Dame Cathedral. Unfortunately though it was closed, but the exterior of the building was gorgeous.

Our drivers dropped us off at the War Remnants Museum and when it was time to pay we were RIPPED OFF BIG TIME. Literally, crazy. Stupidly, we didn’t agree on a price when we first got on the bike, but still we were RIPPED OFF BIG TIME.

The War Remnants Museum was still closed for another half hour so we wandered over to the Reunification Palace. The Reunification Palace was the site of the end of the Vietnam War, when the North Vietnamese troops came through the gates and during the war it was the site of the South Vietnam government. Nowadays, it’s just a museum.

Ho Chi Minh and I

We then made our way back to the War Remnants Museum. Outside the museum were various US airplanes and tanks that we used during the Vietnam War. The museum consisted of three floors, filled with pictures, remnants and stories from the war. During my senior year of high school I briefly learned about the Vietnam War and throughout the museum information came back to me but I was still completely amazed at the whole ordeal. It was a basically an anti-America/look what America did to us museum, so it put a unique spin on the whole war, but some of the stories and pictures still blow my mind. In most museums, you see people taking pictures, and I took a few pictures inside of the museum, but I just couldn’t bring myself to take pictures at a certain point. I think we spent close to two hours in the museum, and I personally was glad we saved it for our last activity of the day.

One section of the museum focused on before and after pictures of areas effected by the Vietnam War

We made our way back to the hostel before heading out to dinner and went to bed early because we have a tour to the Mekong Delta early Wednesday morning!