Our Vietnam Trip 2010

It was our last destination of the Airasia zero fare trips. And here we are in Vietnam Ho Chi Minh City also known as Saigon. As we arrived at the airport, we felt like superstars with hundreds of people welcoming us.

We spotted our pick-up guide, Mr Thai, a very warm and nice fellow who loves his job tremendously.

"Queen Ann" is the hotel we stayed in.

A very nice and pleasant hotel but our room was not ready when we arrived because we were kind of early. So Mr Thai brought us to try the famous beef noodle of Vietnam.Surprisingly tasty and yummy. In Vietnam, all meals come with a plate of fresh vegetables. As for the price... I am not too sure. About RM3.50 per bowl. Here are the various kind of beef noodles we had tried throughout our stay.

Here's our room. Very nice and comfy bed even though it was without windows again (don't know how come).

Our exploring of Saigon started almost immediately. Daughter went to the reception to enquire the locations and the two of us set out on own tour to the 'Cua-Tay Market' (also known as the Ben Than Market) one of the popular tourist attraction. As we were walking toward the market, we couldn't bring ourselves to cross the road. The traffic here do not follow the traffic lights system and there were thousands of motorbikeswhich make it more so impossible to cross the road and extremely scary. Thank God we saw our lucky star, hahaha, a group of westerner with a local guide walking towards the same direction, and quickly we follow them but after a while we lost them. Our nightmare begins... but we manage to arrived at the market somehow with a few missing heart beats, lols. It was very tiring to shop there because the mark-up prices were way up too high making it impossible to bargain or even to buy after a 50% of discount. We ended up window shopping to gauge the prices of things that we intend to buy. Went back to the hotel to freshen up and rested for a while and off we went for dinner at the side walk sitting on low children tables and chairs. Oh yes, by the way, the favourite pastime of the people here is to sit on low table and chairs drinking coffee or tea facing the road watching traffic going by. It's a scene you will see everywhere in the city of Saigon.

It's kind of interesting on the first day for us, will tell you more about 'Cu Chi Tunnel', Mekong River and blah, blah, blah!! Have a nice day!