We left Hoi An early and had another really smooth journey, check in and security. Mark decided to treat himself to a pint of Tiger.. because its 5pm somewhere! Luckily we had some emergency face masks as this was the first time we were required to wear them. I’d decided to book us an aisle and middle seat, just in case Mark needed to stretch his legs out, and we were waiting for the window seat passenger to arrive. It was an old Vietnamese boy, and before we could even get up to let him in, he started trying to climb on and over us to get to his seat! Luckily the crew also stopped him and let us get out to let him in, when he then decided to take his shoes off and put his feet up on the seat in front!
We got picked up at the airport and were quickly back into the crazy hustle and bustle of the big cities of Vietnam. The bikes flying around everywhere like mosquitoes. We got dropped off at our guest house which unfortunately had no lift.. so in the mega heat and with super heavy bags we climbed the stairs to our room at the top of the building. It was a super cute room with lovely decor, and great working aircon!
We hadn’t really done much research on HCMC as we knew we would be arriving late afternoon and not have much free time in the city itself. Tiktok suggested ‘the cafe apartments’. You arrive and have absolutely no clue which door to go in, then climb some dodgy looking stairs, but we eventually found Saigon Ơi – a little gem full of house plants, books, refreshing drinks and delicious red velvet cake 😋 as the sun was setting we decided to go up the skydeck to see the city in both day and night – an observation deck on the 49th floor of the Bitexco Financial Tower. You could see for miles, but they could have done with cleaning the windows 🤣
Before heading to Maccies, we decided to have a quick look at their Notre Dame cathedral. It’s always worth checking Google first, as it’s currently closed and the entire thing is covered in scaffolding 😬 We got to Maccies and put in our order, including a side of rice.. because when in Vietnam! We were enjoying our feast when the man next to me lifted his arse and farted.. loudly. And then just carried on eating as if nothing had happened. I literally couldn’t believe the audacity. We finished up and headed back out onto the street, which was now full of street performers, and cats on leads! There were dancers, fire eaters, singers, etc, as well as people whipping around on segways and skateboards. It really was a bustling hive of activity. On our way back to the guest house, we accidently took a wrong turning and ended up down a street with a suspiciously large amount of women, wearing red lip stick and not an awful lot else…
As we all know, Mark is obsessed with football, and during our stay Newcastle were playing Bournemouth. Due to the time difference, this meant they were playing at 00:30 our time. We headed to pub street which was just down the road from our hotel, and settled down in front of the big screen. Some bars put a non-optional 5% service charge, and the service in this particular bar was beyond awful. We asked for the cheapest beer but got brought more expensive beer, already opened, and walked off when you told them it was wrong, and when we came to pay they didn’t give us any change (it wasn’t a lot but that’s not the point)
After having hardly any sleep, we were made breakfast pancakes by our host and it was fit to burst with fruit. It was delicious! But we struggled to eat all of it, and she definitely looked very sad about this. It was another early start because we were visiting the Cu Chi tunnels. A tunnel network initially built within 25 years from 1948 during the war against the French, and later extended over an area of 250 kilometers during the Vietnam War.On the way we had a toilet stop, which was also a centre for people who were affected by Agent Orange. Among the Vietnamese, exposure to this is considered to be the cause of an abnormally high incidence of miscarriages, skin diseases, cancers, birth defects, and congenital malformations. Whilst it was interesting to learn about, it felt an unnecessary stop to watch ‘handicapped’ people make stuff that they tried to get you to buy after. We arrived at the site and it was absolutely heaving, with large groups of school children everywhere. We were taken by our guide to start the tour, however the school children kept walking past, being really loud and grabbing onto our arms to ask us where we were from – not what we wanted when we were trying to listen! It was time to head into our first tunnel around 3 meters underground, with some being less than 1M high. The next tunnel was ‘the proper one’, where you go into a small hole bringing the lid down with you. The route out of here was luckily a short one, but incredibly dark and narrow and you really had to feel around for where you were going. We then had the opportunity to go to ‘level 2’, around 6M deep and even lower in height. This meant crawling on hands and knees. We were given the option for level 3, but we decided to give this one a miss. We were given the food they would eat, tapioca root with a side of crushed peanuts and sugar, which really wasn’t very nice. The Vietnam War was a prominent events of the 20th century and crawling through these Cu Chi Tunnels is a unique experience, one which if you’re not claustrophobic, you have to do.
For the middle leg of our trip, we decided to book with G Adventures, as we just wouldn’t have had time to sort everything in the short amount of planning time we had. We grabbed out bags from the guest house and walked across the city to the hotel where the group was staying. We met our tour guide and we realised we were joining a tour that had already been together for 10 days. Luckily they were all really lovely and welcomed us into the group. We all went out for dinner as some of their group were leaving in Vietnam which was a lovely way to get to know everyone, and then headed to a sky bar. We didn’t realise how posh it was, and flip flops were not allowed. We managed to sneak by in our Teva’s, but some of the group were given shoes to wear. It was a fantastic view from the top, but the views came with a hefty drink price tag, so we took a few photos and abandoned ship to go and get an early night.
The last day in HCMC was a trip to the Mekong Delta. We boarded a boat to the first island, where we were given lots of delicious fruit and we’re treated to some Vietnamese singing, including them singing if you’re happy and you know it 🤣 the next island was bee island, which Mark was chuffed about as he absolutely hates them 🐝 we were given shots of honey and other honey treats, and they did a great sales pitch but we just couldn’t be tempted. We then jumped on a boat and got rowed by local people to a coconut candy shop. Again, delicious, but we just don’t have any space in any of our bags! We weren’t really looking forward to this as lots of people had said how crowded and rushed the whole thing is, but we had a really lovely day out .
We had our last night in HCMC in one of the local breweries – Heart of Darkness. We had burgers and nachos (which were huge portions), and Mark enjoyed a beer flight. Again, this had the service charge, which was absolutely terrible service, but we let them off (just) because the food was so nice.
HCMC is a big and busy city, but at least you can walk on the pavements, unlike Hanoi. We actually liked the buzz at night around all the street performers, and there are so many bars and restaurants to choose from.
The Travelling Ginger 