Exploring Ho Chi Minh City, Volume 2

Tat Son Nhat International Airport, we meet again! Funny (or gross and disgusting) story: Once we got on the Vietnam Airlines plane from Nha Trang, our seats were literally the last ones on the plane. I glanced at the person next to us to find a flight attendant blatantly picking his nose while staring at passengers getting on the plane. The whole time I was thinking:

And then, mm mmm mmm (in Ilisha's voice) you know you ain't right for that. Trust and believe I didn't touch anything he handed out.

By the time we landed, it was only 8am! We decided to head to the hotel and take our time walking around the attractions all around and exploring the area. Our first stop was the Independence Palace, which is one of the main landmarks in Ho Chi Minh. It was the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. 

Two very nice government workers(?) working outside. The girl on the left helped my mom and I walk across a really busy street (which my mom captured below as the motorcycle tries to run us over.)

After we successfully crossed the street, my mom mentioned how they are definitely not ADA friendly. You know how in the US there are little curb thing so things with wheels (whether it's a wheelchair or a cart) can cross the street without dropping? Well here in Ho Chi Minh, there are ropes and these metal bars on the floor (below) that you have to hop over at each intersection. Weird.

We came across a department store called Diamond Department Store. Their prices were so pricey. My mom and I (since we had time and nowhere to be) walked around inside and it was similar to Sogo in Hong Kong (the prices certain reflect Sogo) and Macy's in the US. It was funny that one of the section of the store was dedicated to Papaya USA (www.papayaclothing.com) and it was literally marketed like a higher scaled clothing company, similar to Zara. Their prices, if you look at their website is like Forever 21 or cheaper and their quality is comparable to Wet Seal. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is- their clothes sold at the Department Store in Vietnam are priced at millions of dollars (US$100+) for a blouse that goes for at most US$20. 

At the very top floor, there was a food court! It's the first food court in Vietnam I've ever seen so it was definitely interesting. Most of the sections serve Vietnamese food (who would've thought). This is the first time I've seen or even heard of Lotteria! My first thought was-- is this the McDonalds of Vietnam? After some research, it turns out that it's actually a global fast food chain that started first in Tokyo. Very interesting!

Our next stop was the Central Post Office and the Notre Dame Cathedral. The Central Post Office is a working post office and it is also the city's main church. The building was constructed when Vietnam was apart of French Indochina and the architecture is absolutely beautiful. A lot of couples were in their wedding outfits taking pictures around the area as the Post Office is located right across from the Cathedral. I believe my mom counted up to 12 couples and then stopped because there were too many.

Crossing the street, we landed right in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral, which is one beautiful architecture. It is interesting because they said that all the original building materials were imported straight from France. And the tiles destroyed and damaged by war was made in Ho Chi Minh to replicate and replace the original, which reminded me a lot about Bosnia and the infrastructure that was destroyed because of war and then the Bosnian government took the original pieces and recovered the building/bridge/statue. 

One of the two pictures we took together on this trip.

Like I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of couples taking engagement photos and getting married. This group's bridesmaids were all wearing yellow. (I only took this to show yellow is not a bad color for bridesmaids. Bahahaha)

We settled at Highlands Cafe to rest a bit. I had the Passion fruit Mojito, which is non-alcoholic and my mom got an Iced Vietnamese Coffee with condense milk on the side. 

The BEST Passion Fruit drink ever! The mix of mint leaves and passion fruit was a genius idea.

Tasting my mom's Vietnamese coffee for the first time without condense milk. SO STRONG. Worse than black coffee.

It was our last day in Vietnam so my mom wanted to reward us by getting mani pedis together! This is the third time I've gotten my nails done (second time for pedis) and it still feels so weird. I have a bajillion nail polishes at home so I usually do my own nails. It's weird to have people touch my hands/feet. But it was so great! Very relaxing and I came out with perfect french tips. 

We each had two girls scrubbing the dead skins off our nails and the total was VND$400,000 which is (USD$20). It was considered expensive in comparison to other nail salons in the area, but well worth it! (My mom also had to bargain for this one. They originally wanted to charge us close to VND$500,000.)

Compared to other nail salons we saw in the area, this one was of the best quality (or at least we think it is.) The other ones were a lot cheaper like mani for $60,000 + pedi for $60,000 making it only $120,000 per person. But it was inside a hair salon that was busy and overcrowded (that might mean that it's real good as well. Who knows!) 

The rest of the time we spent walking around the Bến Thành Market and watching people try to persuade us why their coffee is better than 50 other coffee stands within the 1 foot radius. This has definitely been an eye opening experience. I never thought I would have the opportunity to visit Vietnam and experience the Vietnamese culture up close and personal. The pros were definitely the cheap food! Cons would have to be the bargaining we have to endure for every situation where we had to buy something (even water) and traffic! I uploaded an earlier video of actually being in that craziness but below are two pictures of how a family of four with little kiddies can be on one moped. 

That's it for Vietnam!

Exploring Ho Chi Minh City, Volume 1

I am currently blogging here in Nha Trang (which I will get into later) overlooking the South China Sea from our hotel balcony. It is going into our second full day here in the beautiful country of Vietnam. I hope to post our days here in Vietnam separately since (as always) I have way too many pictures. 

Our flight to Ho Chi Minh began on October 30th at 12:10PM. I was definitely not excited about our 19:55 hour flight to Ho Chi Minh. The whole time I was thinking what my mom's reasoning was behind visiting Vietnam. We know nothing about Vietnam except for their good food and the language is totally different. However, now that I am thinking about it, I'm glad that I was blessed with the opportunity to travel with my mom to explore a country I am not familiar with. As I spend more time with my mom, I have realized that she is someone who I look up to and I wish to be like her when I am older. To be brave and adventurous to visit different countries and expand our knowledge of other cultures. 

We exchanged USD$100 and became instant millionaires! (USD$1=VND21,100)=(USD$100=VND2,110,000 *That's a lot of zeros)

My mom was so excited to fly ANA because it was her first time flying with the Japanese airline. It was my third time flying ANA and I hate flying in general so it was nothing huge. I usually get sick in the air (mostly because of the airplane food) but since my mom was so excited, she wanted to try everything and all the food they have to offer. 

ANA does have much better airplane food than any other airlines I have been on. But I still caint. It's cute though! Look at those cute portions. 

My eyes were so puffy from bawling at the airport x__________x

We had a layover in Tokyo and were there for two hours after an 11-hour flight. My mom (again) has never been to the Tokyo airport so she was so excited to see all the little shops.

Since we had time, we had noodles from Tatsu. The noodles were a bit chewy but the soup base was delicious. I'm obsessed with the portion size and the pretty presentation.

Finally!! We arrived at Tat Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh at around 10:30PM at night and took a taxi to our hotel. We stayed at the Blue Diamond Hotel, which was just 7 km from the airport into the town center. The hotel is centrally located in the town center, around all the attractions. After reading reviews on TripAdvisor, it was apparent that there were not many tourist attractions in the city. They said that you only need a day in Ho Chi Minh to see all it has to offer.

The exterior of the hotel was nice. It was quite deceiving as their rooms look nothing like the exterior. But it was still a decently priced nice hotel for a night stay. 

Taken at the lobby of the hotel

Reception area

After taking a shower, we ventured out to find some food. The famous Bến Thành Market was just merely two blocks away so we decided to head there to see if there was something to eat. The market closes at 12AM and it was 11:30PM by the time we got out but everything was still opened and lots of people were still out! There was a bunch of street food and we just picked one and went with it. Like expected, we didn't know what anything was or how to say what we wanted. So we just pointed and nodded and they showed us real money to tell us how much everything was. 

It was so good! One was just plain broth beef noodle soup and the other was satay beef noodle soup. A bowl of pho probably can cure anything, especially a near 20 hour flight. It was VND$40,000 each (which we now know it's a total rip off.) But at the time, it was a good deal! USD$2 for a bowl of noodles. Yum. By the time we got back to the hotel, we literally passed out from exhaustion. I don't remember when we woke up.. But it was quite early-- like 4:30 or 5AM so we didn't get much sleep. We connected our devices to the free wifi (bonus points for the hotel) and lounged around until the complimentary breakfast at 6:30AM! It was a pretty good breakfast buffet with a lot of savory items, which is my favorite things for breakfast. They had really good passion fruit juice and their fruits, especially the papaya, was sosososo good!

A whole pho bar & porridge bar set up

My momma and her pho

After breakfast, we headed back up to our room to lounge a bit and figured out our next destinations. Our original intention was to walk around as all the tourist attractions were around the hotel. We were just going to walk a circle and end up back at the hotel before getting on the plane to Nha Trang. Once we stepped out on the street and turned the corner, two men with these cyclo's approached us. Again after doing our research about Vietnam and the people, we were skeptical in talking to strangers who approach us. But of course, my mom wants to get the full experience and the guys sold it with VND$150,000 an hour, going around all the sites we were going to walk to. So, we got on board. And when I say, it was the scariest experience ever. It was the scariest experience ever. 

It was us verses thousands of motorcycles, cars, and huge busses.

One of the guys turns out know how to speak Cantonese so my mom was talking to him and he was recommending us places to eat etc. It was going pretty well. My mom mentioned that she wanted to go see the markets and that's where they pedaled us. We went to a total of three places. Below is the first market we went to where there were a variety of random stuff ranging from True Religion jeans to Apple fashion shirts (yes, Apple shirts) in plastic wrapped boxes.  

The second place we went to was a temple. I have no clue which temple it is but it was so beautiful! There are many temples in the city cause going there, we probably passed two or three. 

And then we got out and boarded our cyclos

The next place we went, I unfortunately didn't take any pictures. It was a nicer looking mall-type place with the same stuff as the earlier market. At this point my mom began suspicious on how much this whole cyclo thing will be and since our flight to Nha Trang is coming up, she asked them to take us back to the hotel. To that, they said it would take an hour. By the time we got back to the area by the hotel where they picked us up from, it was only 20 minutes! Once we got off, this is where things got real. They insisted that we owed them VND$1,000,000. Yes, you read that right. Remember in the beginning they said it was going to be $150,000 an hour? How did two people, two hours end up to be $1mil? I would like to know as well.. So APPARENTLY what they didn't tell us was that the first hour was $150,000 but if we wanted to come back to the place where we started, it would be $500,000. At this point, the guy who spoke Cantonese didn't even look at us/tell us how much it was. It was the guy who spoke little English that was pressing us for money! My mom was not having it because she hates it when people lie to her or is not truthful. Before we even got on the little cyclo pedal thing, we asked them how much it would be before we even got on because we didn't exchange much money. We definitely did not have a million to give them (and even if we did, my mom wouldn't). So then she offered them VND$500,000 and USD$2 tip each. Take it or leave it (which means going to the police station). And when my mom said she didn't have enough money to give them, the guy was like ATM ----> Pointing down an alley. Lol! Anyways, long story short of course they took the money. It's interesting to these tourist traps you always hear about in reviews. 

Read more about the very common Cyclo scams in Ho Chi Minh here. 

We returned to the hotel and at this point I think it was 11:30AM. (It felt like the whole day passed and it wasn't even noon yet.) Our check out time is 12:30PM and my mom wanted to get a foot massage. So we dropped off our luggage (since we are coming back for one more night after Nha Trang) and I waited in the lobby until my mom got out! The foot massage was pretty cheap, even at the hotel. It was USD$10 for 70 minutes! 

After my mom came back, we grabbed what we were bringing to Nha Trang and headed out for lunch. (I feel like all we do is eat, lol! Definitely not complaining.) We walked towards Ben Tranh market and turned right before we hit the market and it was a whole street full of shops and restaurants. After looking at a few restaurants, we picked this purple place because a lot of locals were inside eating and enjoying their food. It turns out they have more than 10 other locations, so it must be good right? They also had English next to items on their menu so that was definitely helpful. 

My mom ordered the braised fish in special sauce with broken rice. She also ordered the bittermelon soup, which was good but the bitter aftertaste was really strong. I love love love their fish sauce. But then again, I like all kinds of fish sauce. 

I ordered the rice noodles with lemongrass pork and spring rolls with a side of shrimp and crab in beancurd. In addition, I got their famous passion fruit juice! 

The passionfruit juice was so fresh. There are even seeds inside! It's totally different from anything from the boba places in SF with passion fruit flavored syrup (duh). So good!

So basically, VND$190,300 for a whole meal and more which is USD$8.90. It might be expensive in their standard but it's so cheap in American standard. The portions are small but they are perfectly portioned. We were so full by the time we left! We hailed a taxi and headed to the airport afterwards. 

Coming up is Nha Trang! Stay tuned.