Our first day in HCMC, once again Air Aisa delievered us very safely and efficently. Smooth move through the Airport, considering the hassle getting Bruce's visa (three attempts) there was no concerns and within arriving, getting visa's, through immigration, bag collection and taxi rip off, were out of the Airport within 50 minutes!
The people and the traffic! Everywhere. This is certainly one busy city.
Taxi to the Duc Vuong Hotel in Bui Vien Street and greeted by the lovely door man "welcome home"! This place trully is a home and they make you feel very comfortable. Great room and top location! Phew, snagged it again!
We head off for a walk to get our bearings and this area is called the Pham Ngo Lao area and is known as backpacker area. All sorts of tourists.Lovely spot for lunch and we all enjoy some wonderful Vietnamese food, l was not keen on the food on my last trip here, but so far so good! Bruce and Sam have Vietnamese Curry, Bruce thinks its a bit mild, but was nice to taste the flavours and not have your mouth burnt out, sorry Bruce! I had a lemon grass stir fry on a pile of vege's of which most of them l have no idea what they are other than the carrot, but was delicious!
Of course we enjoyed the coffee, it comes in a little dripper which sits on top of your cup (beer mug) and drips into a blob of condensed milk! You then add the hot water once it has stopped dripping, yum!! We are all now awake!
Funny thing though, in all these cafe's, which line the small streets, all the chairs and directed towards the street, so you sit behind your able towards the street and the people on the other side of the street in their cafe do the same, so you are looking at each other! Weird! Although can also be nice, remembering this is back packer heaven!!!
Anyway, we book Sam and Bruce on a trip to Chu Chi tunnels for tomorrow and then head off in the taxi to Giac Lam Temple, the eldest in HCMC, just beautiful and nothing like any of the temples we have ever seen before. Not very popular with the tourists as no one here only the locals doing a prayer service for the ill, lovely place so quiet. On the way back the taxi driver stops at another temple, he can't speak a word or english so we have no idea which one it is, but we have figured out since, that it was the Quan Am pagoda, a lovely chinese temple, lots of tourists here though. Bruce was trying to find someone who could tell us what it was called, asked the lady out the front but she was selling bird to let for luck, of course she thought he wanted one!!! They finally worked it out that he did'nt, but no name for the temple!
Back to hotel and off for another walk, so many shops, people, bikes, noise.
We end up eating at the Hotel for dinner and its a very lovely idea, as its free and you sit on a long table with some of the other guests and everyone gets to chat and eat together and was nice. A very traditional meal and very enjoyable. We met up with an american couple, another aussie and some french people that were'nt too happy to speak with us!!!
So our first day in HCMC is over, Sam is impressed with the trafffic, the power lines and the food! Bruce is not sure, and l am quietly impressed and think l am going to enjoy this town.
