Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Vietnam - Day 1
I was being bugged to blog yesterday. Okie, not bugged, but asked nicely. So i shall do so. I guess i'll do a day to day thing.We hit Ho Chi Minh (HCM) at around 830, and after waiting ridiculously long at the immigration counter (by this I mean apart from the long queue, after the immigration officer was done, he held on to my passport and looked around for at least 2 minutes), we were on our way. Culture shock on the roads I tell you. All the motorcycles and cars squeezing their way to get out of the airport, there are NO lanes at all. Reached our guest house, Hong Han Guest House by 1030, and another shock awaited me. My room number was 402, now you're thinking, that's the fourth floor right, not so bad. WRONG! The ground floor has no rooms, and the next floor up has one room, and it's number is 002. So, simple mathematics will tell you that 402 was on the 6th floor!! 2 nights I had to climb up there, madness I tell you. I live on the 6th floor back home, and I hardly ever take the stairs, what more with a 10kg back pack.
This is the place we stayed at. It's 238 Bui Vien, and I really recommend it if you're there.
After checking in, we gathered downstairs to head for lunch. We had Pho, pronounced 'Fur' for all who've not been there before. It was really good by the way, and they had free wifi, so that was my first facebook update in HCM. After lunch we headed to the war remnants museum, basically saw lots of relics and pictures from the Vietnam War. Let me tell you, all propaganda! Fair enough to say that no country will tell the other side of the story. It's worth going though, but only once over the many times you visit HCM. After this, we headed to the Reunification Palace. It was the pit stop of one of the legs of the most recent season of The Amazing Race (not that you really needed to know that). Shows you where the President of the past regime would carry out his daily duties, including a bomb shelter and the First Lady's work room. Nice place to visit and take pictures, that's about it.
With my brothers in front of the Reunification Palace.
From there, we walked about 2km to Notre Dame. This was built back when Vietnam was a French Colony. It's an almost exact replica of the one in Paris, so if you can't afford to fly to Europe to see the real thing, HCM will do. Just beside the cathedral was the City Post Office, which has been around for a really long time. Didn't spend too much time at both places, because the next stop was shopping! We headed to the place called Saigon Square 2, which is a 2 storey shopping mall. Super cramped inside, very limited walking area. I didn't get much from there, everything was just replicas of Tommy Hilfiger shirts, or Adidas jerseys, nothing really worth buying. Within an hour, we were all done and outside waiting for dinner to happen.
The Notre Dame Cathedral. Picture courtesy of wikipedia. (didn't manage to get a good shot of the place)
Dinner was at this really nice Indian restaurant. Vietnam for Indian food, awesome eh. The Naan and masala was really really good, but it was a tad expensive for a food place in vietnam. After that we took a walk all the way to city hall, a really long walk. Reaching there, we were greeted by raved Vietnamese celebrating a win over Cambodia at the Laos SEA Games. They were driving around the square honking and waving their flags and making a lot of noise. We made our way across the square to another shopping mall, but this time for coffee. Highland's coffee is the place. Really nice ambiance, being on the roof top and all. We didn't have coffee though. We had beer. No better way to chill out, but with beer and good company with an excellent setting.
The Indian Restaurant with the rest of the tour group. Picture courtesy of Clarence (trip photo buddy)
City Hall. The bikes with the red blotch are the Vietnamese celebrating their win. Picture courtesy of Clarence (trip photo buddy)
There after, we headed back to the hotel to rest. Really long day that was, everyone was tired, and most people turned in after.