Travelling through Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

This is the final post about our journey through Vietnam which ended on the 5th February 2014. We travelled from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City - the North capital to the South capital - and stopped at Ninh Binh, Hué, Hoi An and Nha Trang along the way. We travelled the whole way by sleeper bus which turned out to be an interesting experience (see other posts)! 

The three of us had flights booked out of Ho Chi Minh City on the 5th February so, by the time we were in Nha Trang, we were running a bit short on time. We had originally planned to stop in Mui Ne but decided against it as we preferred to spend longer at our final destination rather than at the beach resort. We travelled overnight from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh and arrived ridiculously early in the morning (I forget the exact time). Again, not wanting to get ripped off by taxi drivers, we made our way to our hotel on foot. When we got there, however, we found that it was completely shut up - doors closed and shutter down! We ended up having to wake up the family who ran it to let us in. To be fair to them, we had booked for that night and we arrived so early that we had to pay for another so they weren't expecting us! It was also during the festival and it seemed that there were not any other guests in the hotel. 

Ho Chi Minh seemed different to anywhere else we'd been in the country, more European than the other cities. There is evidence of much more European-style and modern architecture, as well as wide roads and statues. However, there was still evidence that we were still in Asia. There were still loads of scooters. Everywhere. We walked down a more traditional market street and the Benh Thanh Market near where we were staying was full of people trying to flog fake goods for the best price.

The roundabout in front of Benh Thanh Market

Lights celebrating the new year and lots of scooters!

Market street

Meat stall

One of the things that Alex had been particularly looking forward to in Ho Chi Minh was going to visit the  Cu Chi Tunnels, a vast network of connecting tunnels from during the Vietnam War. We booked a half day trip to go out to see them having decided it would be difficult to make our own way there. It was a good thing we did, as everyone there seemed to be with a tour group and our guide was good. He had been in the Vietnam War himself and showed us his gunshot wound. However, he spent most of the day singing which didn't really fit the setting! "Hello, Ladies and Gentlemen, You come from different countries, To Vietnam on holiday, Come along and sing with me" (or something like that!). We were able to walk around the forest looking at various exhibits of weapons, a tank, underground rooms etc. as well as the gruesome traps the Vietnamese made for the enemy. There was also a shooting range where tourists could pay to fire various guns. The gunshots added to the atmosphere of the forest. Tourists were allowed to get into a replica tunnel opening for photo opportunities and crawl through one of the tunnels, which had been made bigger and had lighting installed to accommodate large Western tourists! The tunnels are definitely worth a visit.. 

Me in the entrance of the tunnels

One of the traps

A tank

Another trap

They must have been lethal!

Exploring the tunnels

Alex in the tunnels

We seemed to visit Ho Chi Minh at a good time as the flower festival was on to celebrate the new year. There were thousands of colourful flowers for people to look at, some of them in different shapes, with lots of horses to celebrate the new year.

Pretty flowers

Colourful

This was all the way down the street for at least 500m

We enjoyed wandering around the city and seeing the various sites.

Modern buildings (with Alex and Chloe)

Municipal Theatre

Statue of Ho Chi Minh in front of City Hall

Notre Dame Cathedral

Reunification Palace

On the 4th February, our last full day in Vietnam, it was my 21st birthday. We discussed various options for what to do, thinking we ought to do something special, but realised that we'd been doing so much over the three weeks that it would be nice just to have a relaxing day. We considered visiting the Mekong Delta but were sick of being herded around on organised tours by then and preferred the idea of a lie-in! After some research, we found that Ho Chi Minh had a bowling alley and some Indian restaurants so we decided it would be a day of home comforts instead. The night before, we went to a really nice Thai restaurant (in preparation for mine and Chloe's next destination!), followed by a  few bars late into the night, so a lie-in on my birthday morning was just what I needed. It was fun to go bowling, something I hadn't done in a few years, and hadn't done on my birthday for even longer! I did have a bowling birthday party for my 10th birthday though. It is often joked that the typical food of Britain is Indian and at home we enjoy our Indian takeaways and occasional meals at Indian restaurants, so it wasn't difficult to choose which cuisine I wanted to celebrate with. 

Action shot!

Results of the first game

Enjoying our Indian

Birthday girl!

The next day, I went with Alex early in the morning to get a taxi to the airport from one of the travel agents. He was setting off to fly from Ho Chi Minh, back to Hanoi. Then from Hanoi to Xiamen via Hong Kong (the same way we came). Then from Xiamen to Dubai via Hong Kong. Then from Dubai to Denmark! That's an awful lot of travelling but I'm glad he arranged it so that he could be there to celebrate my birthday. Chloe and I left later on that day. On the way to arrange our taxi, we saw a lion dancing show as part of the new year festivities. That evening we flew to Chiang Mai, Thailand, via Bangkok. It was sad that our time in Vietnam was over and that we no longer had Alex with us, but we were looking forward to our next adventure!

Lion dancing in the street

The lion