7.10.2010 - One day HCMC tour

We used the service of TNK Travel, whose beautiful office was just opposite our hotel room. Our one-day HCMC tour was to start at 8am. So we had some time to look for our first Vietnamese breakfast. The cost of the day tour was $7 per person, with a simple lunch thrown in. Very reasonable price I would say. Saved us lots of walking and sunburn.

We had our first bowl beef noodle soup at a Pho24 franchise shop. The beginning of many more noodle soups to come.

You would notice by now, they always serve the noodle soup with a big plate of vegetables. I only ate the beansprouts. Didn't like the strong-flavored vegetables.

Packed some buns from the bakery for eating on the bus.

That was our tour guide for the day. There was about 11 international tourists in the minibus for the tour.

Our first stop was the War Remnants Museum.

Lots of nice aircrafts and army tanks parked around the grounds for kids to play.

Inside the museum were photographs and stories about the Vietnam War. The theme of the museum was "arrogant and brutal American soldiers committed many war atrocities against harmless Vietnamese during the Vietnam War".

M16, AK47... you name it, they've got it.

Bombs, bullets, and hand grenades. Looked like lots of toys for Ryan.

Missile toys.
A huge guillotine for potong kepala of Vietnamese Communists (Vietcongs).

After that, the tour bus headed to District Five, also known as Chinatown, about 6km away from city centre.

First they brought us to visit a Chinese temple. The orang putihs were fascinated, but for us the temple was a big yawn.

"Burn one of these and it will bring you good luck." So the orang putih bought one.

Then we went to visit the Cholon market of Chinatown. It was a busy wholesale market, supplying stuffs to the other markets around HCMC. Prices of things there were very reasonable, unlike the cut-throat prices in the Ben Thanh tourist market.

Many kinds of hats and caps to choose from.

And the helmet industry to support the motorbiking population. In HCMC they don't use the full helmets endorsed by SIRIM that we use in Malaysia. Any helmet would do, with whatever creative designs you like.

"I got my daddy to buy me a Pooh helmet."

Then we went back to District One to visit the Reunification Palace. It was a gigantic five-storey building complex that used to be the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Got a spacious compound with a water fountain in the middle.

Vietnam War was quite complicated. First the Vietnamese were conquered by the Chinese, then the French. They beat the French at a battle at Dien Bien Phu, but entered Vietnam War with the Americans after that. North Vietnam were communism-supporters, known as Vietminh, backed by the communist party in China. South Vietnam was against communist ideology. The Americans wanted to block the flow of communism down South (domino theory), so they supported the South Vietnam government in the fight against communists in South Vietnam, known as Vietcongs. And they fought for 20 years, until in 1975 a North Vietnam tank bulldozed into the Palace compound and ended the Vietnam War.

The tour guide gave us a briefing at the conference hall.

Then we walked all over the huge building to explore the many rooms and halls inside.

Map room where the President and his generals planned their military moves.

Reception halls to welcome foreign dignitaries, or maybe to hold cabinet meetings.

At the rooftop, there was a bar, a mini theatre, a gambling room... also a small library. War time also must have entertainment ma. That was the President's escape helicopter.

There were things to see underground as well. We walked through the underground bunkers to look at more map rooms and communications rooms (with antique telephones and typewriters).

And we visited a Buddhist temple after that. They temple itself wasn't very interesting, so I took photos of the nice flowers outside.

Then the tour guide brought us to visit a lacquerwork factory. Lacquerwork was a very popular form of handicraft sold around HCMC.

Making these works of art was a painstaking affair. Broken eggshells were glued piece by piece correctly aligned, onto a block of wood.

A worker toiling with full concentration. I think I'll go crazy doing this kind of art.

A handicraft shop beside the factory.

The next stop was the Post Office. Yes you read it correctly, the Post Office. Pejabat Pos la. Nice architecture isn't it.

They sell handicrafts and first-day-covers in the post 0ffice. Got some nice phone booths too, the kind of place Superman would change into his red-underwear-outside costume.

Next stop was the Notre Dame Cathedral, just beside the Post Office.

A very nice cathedral built for religious services for the French colonialists. There were Vietnamese couples taking wedding photos outside.

Colourful stained-glass on the windows.

At the inside of the cathedral.

Playing around at the gates. We were so glad the tour has reached the end. It was very tiring, even with travelling in an aircon bus.

The bus dropped us back at the hotel after the tour. Had a bath, dinner, then walked to see a Water Puppet Show at a 'Golden Dragon' place. (Vietnamese could be so Chinese at times).

Along the way, we saw locals playing a shuttlecock-kicking game in the park. Looked like lots of fun.

The motorbike army of HCMC going home.

The Water Puppet Show place was about 20 minutes walk from our hotel. Tickets were $5 per person. And the show that night was a full-house. Very interesting show indeed.

The 'stage' was a pool of murky water (to hide the equipments maybe). On both sides were musicians and singers and narrators, which made the show seemed like a Chinese opera in Vietnamese language.

The guy on the right sang and played the drums.

A story about buffaloes and paddy planting.

Dragon boat race?

Water fairies dancing on the water.

The performers came forward at the end of the puppet show to receive applause. Hmmm... so those guys actually sat inside the water throughout the 45-minute show.

Late supper at the night market (pasar malam) beside Ben Thanh market: macaroni soup with sugarcane juice.

Flying off to HCMC

Since our HCMC-bound flight was in the afternoon, I had some time to settle stuffs in Seremban in the morning.

After lunch my parents sent us to the Low Cost Terminal (LCCT) to catch the AirAsia flight to HCMC.

Ryan was quite excited at first.

Then he started to cry in the plane. "I want my adik ".

Didn't need any in-flight entertainment this time. Ryan slept well throughout the 1 hour 50 minutes flight. So, going to HCMC was actually nearer than me going back to Kota Kinabalu.

The plane descending. Was that the Saigon river?

HCMC seemed like a very densely populated place.

At the Tan Son Nhat airport, Vietnam's largest international airport. At the airport we greeted by a rude immigration guy who was obviously frustrated at his boring job.

The airport was located about 6km north of HCMC city centre. After reading multiple reports of taxi cheating scams on the Lonely Planet forum, we decided to walk over to the Domestic Terminal to take a Mai Linh taxi into town. The Mai Linh and Vinasun fleets of taxis were said to be more reliable, and tourist were less likely to encounter unscrupulous taxi drivers who overcharge by bringing tourists for joyrides or using rigged meters.

The trip into town usually takes less than 30 minutes. Unfortunately, we were caught in the after-work-going-home traffic.

Our first taste of the traffic in HCMC: motorbikes everywhere.

Endless streams of beeping motorbikes surrounding the taxi.

The trip to city center took longer than usual, and the taxi fare came to USD$10 on the meter, a bit more than the flat rate of $8 for an airport taxi.

We dropped off at Pham Ngu Lao street, the backpackers' haven of HCMC. Something akin to the Khao San Road of Bangkok, or Petaling Street of KL. It was dark already when we reached. And I couldn't find the hotel than I booked on the internet (hahahaha...). So we just settled for a simple room above a tailor shop in De Tham street. It turned out to be a good deal anyway. For $15 a night we got a very spacious air-con room with two queen-sized beds, wifi in the room, a huge window and balcony, and an extremely central location.

Quickly took a bath, and went down to look for dinner. Had our first dinner at Kim Cafe along the same street as our hotel, based on recommendation of our hotel receptionist. Even though the shop was packed with tourists, the food wasn't great.

Ryan had a beef burger. Ah there was the last picture we had of his toy car given by grandma, which he then lost somewhere in HCMC.

I wanted to try something Vietnamese, so I ordered a Vietnamese pancake. It's like a thosai made of crispy flour, with fillings consisted of lots of beansprouts, vegetables, and a couple of shrimps. Notice the plate of vegetables which accompanied the pancake. Ryan's mum had beef fried rice (not very interesting, didn't take any photo).

Vietnamese beer was cheap. Cheaper than can drinks. Cost less than RM2 for a bottle.

After dinner, we walked around De Tham street to check out the neighbourhood. We found a nice yogurt shop nearby...

Many Vietnamese families and youngsters were hanging out in the yogurt shop. There were vending machines where you could choose and mix your own flavors of yogurt and toppings, then head for the cashier who would then weight your cup and charge accordingly. I think it was 15k dongs for 100g. By the way, 10k dongs was equivalent to about RM1.70.

Yummy!

Then we walked back to De Tham street, to check out the many travel agencies there. Well, almost every other shop was a travel agency, and they offered similar local tour packages, with slight difference in prices.

I was initially planning to travel on our own, at our own pace. But seeing that Ryan could hardly tolerate much walking, taking local tours seemed to be the next best option.

Read somewhere that Saigon was a city that never sleeps. All night we heard motorbikes and beeps on the street downstairs. The downside of being in a central location.

Flying back to KL and Seremban

I bought some AirAsia tickets for a trip to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC in short, or just Saigon) about 9 months ago, when they were offering free tickets. Time passed so fast, and it was time for the trip already.

Wanted to bring along Izac to Vietnam, but his grandma so kindly offered to take care of him in Seremban. So we flew back to KL/Seremban first to drop Izac off, before flying off to HCMC the following day.

Malaysia Airlines big planes were pretty comfortable.

They had a little basket for babies to sleep in. And Izac slept comfortably, with a pillow and blanket with nice air-con.

The 2.5 hours flight was very boring for Ryan, and he grew restless. Luckily we brought along some in-flight entertainment to keep him occupied.

On the road

It has been quite some time we haven't really gone away. It's good that we finally got the chance to go northwest and visit Uncle Ho.

Growing up with new hairstyles