October 23rd - 27th, 2012.
The flight to Ho Chi Minh was very cheap that time, so my uni gang decided to go there since we just started making money. We spent less that RM1000 in the whole trip, 5 days 4 night from A to Z. Damn cheap.
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| Our lovely breakfast from hotel |
Ho Chi Minh was well developed compared to 10 years before (my 1st time to Ho Chi Minh city). Staying close to the town is best choice as there’s lotsa foods in waking distance, Night market, street food, travel agency, park with a lot of people doing aerobics or dancing in the evening, beer by the street and etc.
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| Park with aerobics |
The scary part in the city is crossing the road. There is
lots of bikes that won’t give you any space to cross. Just be calm and cross slowly as other Vietnamese then you’ll get use to it in a short while.
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| How to cross if all of them are moving? |
What we did in those days? There was only
3 main attractions for each day, city tour for day 2, Cu Chi Tunnels on day 3, Mekong river tour on day 4. 1st day and last day is considered skipped as we reached pretty late and left pretty early on last day.
It was a happy trip with those we went together with, a balance gang of 5. We had a boss, a banker, a GPS and 2 photographers. We have similar mindset, we like food, adventurous, can walk for pretty long distance (under hot sun). It was fun being with them.
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| Walking under hot sun |
DAY 1 : HO CHI MINH CITY TOUR
I recommend that you book the tour through agent (there's a lot of agents around the city). We checked the price that it was very cheap. The advantages is that you don’t need to walk the whole city under the hot sun. And of course, you don't need to read map on your own (where I believe not everybody can read map).
Get a city map, we managed to visit most of the attractions in the city by walking i.e. museums, church, and even hi tea. I'm sure that you can visit all if you're visit by some transportation. FYI, most of the museums operate till 5pm.
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| The Opera House |
DAY 2 : CU CHI TUNNELS
Definitely need to book transport to go there, not within walking distance. This would only spend half day, so what we did for another half day? Through our tour package, we visited a temple on the way to Cu Chi Tunnels.
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| Very beautiful temple |
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| Praying session |
I don't remember much description of this temple and the religion.
It was so good that we reached there on time for their praying session. It was full of tourists visiting during that session. There's staircase for you climb up and see from 1st floor too.
We head to Cu Chi Tunnel after the praying session in the temple.
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| The Cu Chi Tunnel (Nah, I'm joking) |
Cu Chi Tunnel is the leftover from the war long long time ago. There is a tour guide guided us around. They explained to us on what's the purpose of this tunnel and what were the history back then. Please wear something that is dark in colour because you will be given the chance to crawl through some very narrow tunnel (and keep fit too). It was damn tiring for me as I need to squat through the tunnel, it's not easy for tall man like me. LOL
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| After tunnel party with refreshments |
Day 3 : MEKONG RIVER
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| The Jetty |
Since it's a river, we need a boat to have our trip with it.
What did we do there? Trip around the river and crossover to the other side of it for a village.
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| Market on the river : Boat & their House |
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| The village on the other side of river : Making rice paper |
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| Lunch in the village : Standing fish |
WHAT TO EAT :
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| 1st meal, Pho |
There is a lot of food to eat around the town or night market.
Something you must eat is Pho in beef slice. We went for the one that is close to our hotel (recommended by reception). Well, it was damn good, is every pho this good in Vietnam?
Clear broth that you can add those extra veggie and bean sprout given separately. Noodles that was nicely cooked with sliced beef, shredded beef and beef ball. It was so clear that you can taste that everything is fresh.
We didn’t try other restaurant recommended in other website, can’t compare with the rest.
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| Street seafood stall |
Local
street food is always my favourite.
Seafood stall on our 1st night. You can see a lot of these stall along the beer street.
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| Clam |
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| Boiled Duck Egg |
The most special dish I ate, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Must try…
Duck egg that’s gonna hatch soon. The egg is boiled with some topping on it.
You can see that it’s going in shape. It just taste like any other egg. Interesting part is the texture. Soft meat with few bones or bone that is in progress of forming. Chewing eyeballs, and feathers that might stuck between your teeth.
WARNING! GRAPHIC CONTENT!
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| The almost hatching egg content |
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| Local snacks : Rice paper rolls and glutinous rice |
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| Hot Pot |
Our last dinner before heading back to our country.
Something more expensive to spoil ourself. Was looking for vinegar hot pot but mistaken as other hot pot. Luckily it didn't disappoint us at all.
Their grill fish and scallops were awesome. Too bad that I don't remember the name of the restaurant anymore. It's located somewhere close to the pub street.
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| Don't forget the dripping coffee too |
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| Local Starbucks |
Nightlife?
Cheap alcohols all over the street. You don’t need to worry about them. You only need to worry about the seats as they are so crowded and limited.
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| Cheap local beers |
Actually there were something more than cheap beers by the street, there's few streets of slightly more expensive pub all around the town. I am not sure about other like clubs as we didn't go there.
Oh, before I forgot, this is the place we stayed
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| Hong Han Guesthouse |
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| Credit to my awesome gang :D |
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